Related technical fields include organ or tissue perfusion apparatuses that are capable of sustaining and/or restoring viability of organs or tissue and preserving organs or tissues for diagnosis, treatment, storage and/or transport, and more particularly to an interrelationship between various components of the organ or tissue perfusion apparatus that come into contact with the organ or tissue and/or perfusate. For convenience, the term “organ” as used herein should be understood to mean organ and/or tissue unless otherwise specified.
It is an objective of organ perfusion apparatus to mimic the conditions of the human body such that the organ remains viable before being used for research, diagnosis, treatment or transplantation. Many times the organ needs to be stored and/or transported between facilities. A goal of sustaining and restoring organs during perfusion is to reduce ischemia and reperfusion injury. The increase in storage periods in a normal or near normal functioning state also provides certain advantages, for example, organs can be transported greater distances and there is increased time for testing, treatment and evaluation of the organs.
In maintaining organs in near ideal conditions and physiological states it is known to provide the organ in a cassette that allows for perfusing, storing, diagnosing, analyzing and/or transporting the organ. It is also known to provide the cassette in a compartment of an organ perfusion apparatus having a cooling structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,691,622 discloses, for example, a configuration in which an organ holding cassette may be disposed within a cooling compartment provided in a watertight container such that the walls of the cassette mate with a corresponding configuration of an inner transporter wall to maintain contact, and thus heat transfer, therebetween.